A place for horse related questions

Almost certainly yes. It'd be pretty painful but no permanent damage. Although arranging for that to happen might be tricky :) A surprise rabbit hole would do the trick also, but might break or permanently damage the horse's leg (and your rider would take a tumble.)
 
Rrrrrrr. Thank you :)

It needs to be something an observer could do. I wondered about throwing a couple of handfuls of large, sharp stones?
 
Could you work caltrops into your story? These are metal devices which always fall with a sharp point upwards and I believe they were used to stop cavalry. However, your protagonist would need to plan ahead, in order to use them.
 
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Awkward things, horses. Thank you, kmq and TitaniumTi. I think I have an idea :)
 
As an alternative to caltrops...


I recall a protest in...I want to say Belgium. Anyway, they wanted to stop the police horses without hurting them. So they got a load of lion poo from the zoo. Horses wouldn't go near it :)

I think from a distance you're restricted to throwing/firing things and hoping they hit. Or making the horse shy perhaps, but that'll depend in the horse. Some shy at crisp packets blowing in the wind, others are bombproof! I once rode a horse that was afraid of the colour yellow...
 
How do you take a horse or camel from the ground on a "shuttle like thing" (bigger than NASA ones) to dock at a passing Starship or vice versa?

Lash the poor animal to floor or wall?

How did people take horses & Camels on Sailing ships across the Atlantic? Or to Austriala?
 
For the shuttle, they'll usually just walk on up a ramp and then they would travel in a stall built specially, about 4-5' high and around 6'x2' in size, just big enough for the horse. They travel them like that in airplanes now. Occasionally one might need sedated if it panics but usually they travel well. The biggest danger flying is if a horse panics it could kick out and damage the fuselage risking depressurisation. Your shuttle might be more robust?

Old fashioned sailing ships, much the same except they'd lift them aboard using a sling and derrick and travel them below decks. For long journeys they might let them on deck one at a time to stretch their legs.
 
So if the stall rotates so that the floor is always "down", it's the same as ships or aircraft. In atmospheric flight, down is below, in other situations down is in direction of thrust, No coasting or orbiting, so no microgravity. Or in a sling would be better for higher G and manoeuvring?
I'd arrange stalls so that front or back was other compartments.
@Kerrybuchanan Thanks

I'm not planning right now to have actual horses or camels (it's a fictional riding animal more like a camel than a horse but not camel personality. I used to have goats so they have Ibex like horns and goat like personality). But if what I have works for horses and / or camels then it's more believable. The actual Starship isn't a problem (apart from being fictional) as it never orbits except for repairs and is always accelerating for 3+ months or sitting on its drive to decelerate for 3+ months, so the rear is always "down" except for the time taken to turn by 180 degrees with thrust off to switch from acceleration to deceleration or vice versa. I'm not worried about my other WIP with real horses as they are incidental and in quite ordinary situations I'm familiar with. I need to do hard sums to discover how fast an 18km long steel structure (not in orbit) can be turned. I suspect that with a suitable number of navigation rocket engines, it's normally a few minutes.
 
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This will doubtless seem a silly question to those who understand these things, but what head clearance do you need for a person to ride comfortably inside something like a tunnel?

I know much will depend on type of horse and height of rider, so I'm looking at a not-especially tall woman, say 5' 8" max but could be smaller, mounted on a palfrey, which I'm taking as around 15 or 16 hands (that never-knowingly-wrong (ha!) fount of all wisdom, Wikipedia, says the average size of the medieval horse was 12 to 14 hands, and I'm assuming a palfrey is -- or is in my world -- smaller than a courser, but bigger than a hobby) so that's 5 ft tall at the shouldery-bit** of the horse, right? She'd be riding old-fashioned side-saddle, if that makes a difference (perhaps not so erect as modern-style?) so would a tunnel height of 8ft be enough? Or does it need to be higher to allow more for the saddle itself plus the horse's gait -- only walking so no need to worry about rising trots or anything, but presumably there's some up-and-down motion still?


** excuse the highly specialised technical language
 
Take this with a pinch of salt (I've never ridden side saddle), but your estimate sounds about right, Yer 'onour. However, I would throw in a couple of caveats. How fast is your rider going? There is natural movement and wouldn't want her to bang her head.*

And, what remember the shape of the tunnel, which is usually rounded. Near the edges, the curvature can reduce the height considerably so, for instance, making way for opposing traffic might mean she has to duck.

*Or feather fancy headwear - turning up with crumpled feathers is not good form. ;)

'Shouldery-bit' - you mean the withers, I presume? :p
 
Ta, Aber!
Abernovo said:
How fast is your rider going?
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A slow walk -- the men are on coursers, so they're having to lead their horses, but I was thinking of having the women ride if possible, but 8 ft high is about the maximum I can realistically make the tunnel, so if greater height was needed I'd have to rethink.

And, what remember the shape of the tunnel, which is usually rounded. Near the edges, the curvature can reduce the height considerably so, for instance, making way for opposing traffic might mean she has to duck.
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No curves and no traffic coming the other way, so that's fine. And no fancy headgear, either, fortunately!

'Shouldery-bit' - you mean the withers, I presume? :p
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Well, I didn't want to show off my equine knowledge... (And I have to confess that before checking to see where hands were measured to, I'd always assumed withers were the back end of the horse, eg its hips/buttocks, as one's withers being wrung sounded more like something that might happen in that area than the shoulders! Doubtless Hamlet knew what he was talking about though.)

Thanks again. I'll be back in the next day or two, though, as I've more horsey issues coming up.
 
Very quickly as I'm supposed to be going to sleep! Horses aren't fans of going into dark confined places (which is why a lot of training goes into loading them to travel and why some racehorses need blindfolding to go into the starting box). If you have a long dark tunnel you are probably better off leading them with the bravest horse in front rather than riding risking a rear out of fear and a banged head for both horse and rider. Side saddle is just as upright in rider position as astride ;)
 
I actually knew that! In my old fantasy I have them all being blindfolded before being led into long tunnels, and they were all led through not ridden as the horses were liable to shy at things in the darkness, so I got that right! But in this fantasy it's not actually a tunnel as such, it's just that was the easiest way to describe it in asking the question, so darkness isn't a problem here. The space is a bit confined, but some of the horses are trained to go through, and I can have the others and the mules being calmed, magically or otherwise, if need be.

Thanks for pointing that out, though, as I might have come a cropper!
 
Thought I would give this a bump and send you to an interesting modern driving site ;) Indoor Horse Driving Trials. I do this over the winter with my whip. Great fun, really interesting and they stick pictures up - you can see what driving harness looks like, how horses move in carriages and what sort of thing they can do! Most are modern marathon carriages, but if you look for showing driving you'll see the older more traditional carriages. If anyone needs links to pictures of coaches or carriages, governess carts etc just let me know!

Also check out swingletree photography - they do loads of driving pictures (hence the company name!) :)

Anyway. Have a good look, and see what us crazy horse people are up to :) dressage, cones and obstacles ;)
 
Wonderful topic! I have no experience with horses at all, so I try to get away with as little specific detail as possible. "He galloped over the meadows..." or "He mounted up..." is like something I would say. When I absolutely must describe horses, I have resorted to instructional videos and websites on YouTube about basic horsemanship. This (hopefully) helps me avoid having the horses or their riders doing something egregiously wrong.

On the subject of CARRIAGES, though, I have given myself a problem related to another subject where I have very little experience: snowy weather. Apologies, but I live in California. Snow is a mystery to me.

In my latest WiP, I want a couple of prisoners transported by a cargo wagon type carriage in the snow. I assumed that wagon wheels don't do very well in calf-deep or knee-deep snow, especially if there is no road, and thus I say that we're using a sleigh or sled. My king's guards are all mounted on saddles so there's not a problem with them. It's my prisoners. I want them huddled up in the dark wagon. Then, it occurred to me that I've only seen "open" sleighs -- such as the kind Santa Claus rides -- and not a carriage that is an enclosed vehicle with a roof. The gypsies rode in vardo wagons that were like a miniature home on wheels, but that's not what I'm imagining. The only example I can find on the internet is a glorious carriage sleigh used by Catherine the Great of Russia.

Question: is there such a thing as a closed carriage on sleigh blades instead of wheels? If so, how many horses are needed to pull it?
 
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